Not that I don’t love my momma. I do. But I don’t think I like her much as a person.
The old Jane would’ve gone along to get along, but that girl died in Nicodemus, and thank God. It’s been a spell since we’ve been in each other’s presence, and the more time I spend with the woman that birthed me the more I realize that my memory ain’t nothing like the reality. I start to remember all the small hurts inflicted by my mother, all the bad times that greatly outnumbered the good. It doesn’t help a lick that she’s got little ones to chase about. She dotes on Romeo and Tybalt in a way she never could me, and it’s clear that they are well loved even if Edith tends to most of their needs. They will be beautiful boys when they get older. I try to remind myself that the babies are my younger brothers and I shouldn’t envy them but I do.
I don’t fit.
Spending time with my momma and her new husband makes me feel like a dark cloud raining down on her happiness. She loves being the mayor’s wife, and she flits about her duties like a goddess of industry, overseeing the stores and preparations for next winter, immaculately dressed even though Haven is far from any sort of cosmopolitan society. It’s not far from what she did at Rose Hill. Only I suppose without the stress of trying to pass as white.
Meanwhile, I feel as though Haven is smothering me. Or maybe it’s just the staying in one place. When I was on the road my nightmares couldn’t catch me. Here, they come to roost.
Most nights I wake in the middle of sleep, a scream half trapped in my throat as terror stalks me. Or, if I let myself go idle too long, I fall into imagining once more that terrible end that befell the Turners or wondering where Redfern’s other Survivalist towns are, the ones he let slip that one time in conversation. When I asked him he said, “I’m sure they’ve met their end by now, Jane.” But what if they haven’t? What if there is a version of me out there struggling against the weight of hatred and injustice as I once did? What if my time could be better spent out in the world, righting all of the wrongs that I can?
The more time I spend in the idyllic setting of Haven, the more I wonder about such things, until my feet itch to leave.
But Sue is getting married, and while our friendship ain’t what it once was, especially since I am fighting very hard to keep my dark feelings to myself so as not to ruin her impending vows, she is my oldest friend. And I cannot leave before she gets hitched.
May is a whirlwind of activity, and even as I’m helping to stitch Sue a trousseau, which I can still do surprisingly well, even one-handed, I’m thinking about leaving. So much so that one afternoon, a few days before the wedding, Katherine loses her patience with me and snaps her fingers an inch away from my nose.
“Jane, I was asking you if you plan on wearing those trousers of yours to Sue’s wedding or if we should see about cutting down another one of your mother’s dresses. Where are you these days?”
Katherine, Sue, and I are in the sitting room of the rooming house recently built by Miss Mellie May and her brother, Carolina Jones. Salty lies on the rug at our feet, Tomás by his side. Lily has been trying to embroider a hem with tiny daisies for nearly an hour, and every time she pokes herself she swears and Katherine murmurs, “Language, Lily.” Miss May comes in and out with refreshments as we work, and I should be happy. This is everything I thought I wanted.
But I feel like all my insides are made of rusty blades, rubbing together in an awful way. Only, this time, I know why.
Both Sue and Katherine have resided in the boardinghouse since it was completed. I’d intended to move there as well, if for no other reason than to be near the people I cared about. Carolina and his sister had taken over looking after Tomás while I was chasing Gideon Carr, and it was a brilliant fit. They adore the boy more than the sun itself and I didn’t have the heart to break up their happy family, but it was another reason to take a room. Plus, I wanted to live somewhere other than my mother’s house. I had coins enough, and I was a fifth wheel within my family, even with Edith there, but when I’d mentioned it Momma had taken herself to her room and refused to come out until her husband, Robert, had begged me to reconsider.
“Gone. I’m gone,” I say now, in answer to Katherine’s question. When she arches a blond brow all the things that have been rattling around in my head the past few weeks come spilling out, how of all the places I’ve been, this is the first place that just doesn’t seem to need me.
Haven is a great place for folks like Sue, those who want to settle down and get to raising a family. For me, this ain’t where I belong.
I want something more.
I want the purpose I had when we went searching for the Spencers in Baltimore or struggled to escape Summerland. I want the freedom I had when Callie and I made our own way across the continent. I want the sense of justice I felt when I lived by my wits and hunted the men and women who plagued civilized society. Less killing would be nice, I don’t miss that, but if killing is the price of freedom then I’m willing to pay it.
Katherine gives me a long look before putting down her sewing. “You are leaving.”
“Yes,” I say. I don’t tell her anything beyond that. If anyone can understand how I feel, it’s Katherine.
“Not before my wedding, I hope,” Sue says, and for the first time in all the years I’ve known her, there is murder in her eye.
“No,” I say with a smile. “After. I promise. And I will even wear a dress.”
Katherine looks down at her lap, as though that was no longer the question she wanted answered.
“As far as I am concerned you can wear a flour sack as long as you’re there. Katherine is the one pushing to make sure we all look like cream and cocoa,” Sue says.
“This is the first wedding I have ever been to, will you please just let me make us all beautiful?” she wails.
Our answering laughter fills me with light and joy. But I still know, deep in my heart, that it is time to go.
And as everyone else laughs, Katherine is looking only at me.
It is a gorgeous wedding.
Sue and her beau hop the broom and we all cheer. Even Daniel Redfern has managed to make a rare appearance for the celebrations. There’s no proper preacher in Haven (to the town’s credit in my opinion) but Thaddeus Stevens is all too happy to officiate. His voice goes on and on about love and commitment and by the time Sue kisses her blacksmith I’m half asleep.
After the service, as we all make our way to the tables set up for the occasion, Thaddeus Stevens stops me. “Ah, Miss McKeene, might I have a word with you?”
Before I can answer he’s taken my bouquet of wildflowers and handed it off to Katherine while pulling me away from the flow of people. She gives me comically wide eyes, and my belly fills with acid.
Oh Lord.
Mr. Stevens leads me to his house and the workshop behind it where he’s been going through Gideon’s book, trying to puzzle some of the more complicated designs. Momma has already declared her intent to have one of the hot-water-making machines installed in her home once Mr. Stevens can fabricate them reliably. I wonder where they’re going to get the required metals for such a thing, but very soon none of that will be my problem.
We enter his workshop, and I’m not quite sure what to expect but I have my pistol strapped to my thigh under my dress in case he gets the wrong idea. But he turns to me not with a ring, which is a relief, but with a metal contraption pieced together out of odds and ends.